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Rachael Salmon
Bio 101-102
Lab Report #2

I.

Introduction:

A gene is a set of instructions that affects the phenotype. An allele is defined as

variable types of specific genetic characteristics or genotypes. A recessive trait is
an allele with an effect that is masked by a dominant allele in heterozygous
individuals. A dominant trait is an allele that masks the effect of a recessive allele in
heterozygous individuals. Natural selection is the survival and reproduction of
individuals of a population based on differences in their shared, heritable traits. A
population is a group of organisms of the same species that live in a specific location.
In the lab, a population is the mix of alleles that make up the genes in each person.
Evolution is the progression or regression that aids or diminishes the success of the
race. An autosomal recessive trait will not be expressed in the phenotype unless the
individual inherits a recessive allele from both parents; these traits are not sexlinked. A lethal gene must be inherited from both parents to cause death; offspring
must have two such recessive alleles, so they are homozygous recessive.
Homozygous dominant individuals are living, and heterozygous individuals are also
living; homozygous recessive individuals die because of the genetic condition. A
phenotype exhibits traits that you can see on an individual, and a genotype is a set of
alleles that an individual carries.

My hypothesis is as follows: I predict that the normal gene alleles, which were
the blue beads, will increase, and the lethal alleles, which were the yellow beads,
will decrease.

(Science Department Handout, 2012), (Mader, 2013).

II.

Methods and Materials:

I first counted out 60 blue beads and 40 yellow beads and put them into the tub
that we were given. I then mixed the balls (genes) up and let them roll down to the
corner of the tub that they were in. Next, I counted out the number of individuals
which was every two beads that would take two more alleles from each parent.
Then, each person in my group picked two balls, and if they were blue then they
were normal, but if they were yellow they were considered dead or lethal. I then
calculated the percentages of all the homozygous normal individuals, heterozygous
normal individuals, and lethal individuals. I recorded the percentages in my table of
data. I repeated this procedure nine more times and recorded my data each time.

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III.

Results:

I found that every time I removed two more alleles (balls) from the tub, the
percentage of normal alleles (blue balls) increased by a little bit, and the percentage
of lethal alleles (yellow balls) decreased by a little bit.

Generation
1
Generation
2
Generation
3
Generation
4
Generation
5
Generation
6
Generation
7
Generation
8
Generation
9
Generation
10
IV.

#D

#R

60

40

Generations
%D % R # D
#R
%D
%R
(end) (end) (end) (end)
60% 40% 60
30
67% 33%

67

33

67% 33% 67

25

73%

27%

73

27

73% 27% 73

13

85%

15%

85

15

85% 15% 85

11

87%

11%

87

11

87% 11% 87

91%

9%

91

91% 9%

91

93%

7%

93

93% 7%

93

93%

7%

93

93% 7%

93

95%

5%

95

95% 5%

95

95%

5%

95

95% 5%

95

95%

5%

Conclusion:

My hypothesis was supported in that the population of dominant genes

increased and the population of recessive genes decreased by a small amount each
time I picked out two more alleles from the tub.

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This exercise illustrated the way the gene pool changes every time an individual is
born and it shares its two parents genes.

If the lethal gene was not activated until an individual reached age 45 and then
the individuals reproduced, the results would be different. The results would be
different, because each time the lethal gene individuals had the chance to reproduce,
they would enlarge their side of the gene pool, which would be made up of recessive
genes. So, instead of the genes ending up mostly dominant, the results may end up
being more even in percentages.

A future experiment with this information may be to see what the individuals
who end up in the last generation would look like, and see how much farther into
the generations you are able to go without causes genetic issues.

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Works Cited:

Mader, S. S. (2013). Laboratory manual to accompany biology. (11th ed., pp.

61-64). United States of America: McGraw-Hill Education LLC.